Link stood right in the middle of a group of archaeologists without them noticing. It wasn't their fault: he was both invisible and intangible. He'd been making great use of one of the other two magic items he'd found in that forest shrine, a magic cape that made him, well, invisible and intangible. Well… the intangible part was a little odd. It wasn't that he didn't understand the rules of the item, he recalled this thing from one specific life of his, he just wasn't sure how someone had made this. He wasn't intangible to the floor or walls, but people, animals, furniture, fire, and more… mobile objects didn't have any physical value to him. Or rather he had none against them. It did drain his magic well, but extremely slowly and he had found that, while it wasn't being drawn from, said magic reserve did slowly refill while he stayed near these sacred places, he'd managed to do this on the previous night by finding a hidden corner, away from guards and cameras, and sleeping there with the cape in his inventory. Well, the cape had turned out very useful when his next goal was in the middle of the Valley of Kings… and had just now been discovered in an archaeological dig. It was of particular note when what they'd found had largely been impeded by a large door that was both covered in the Hylian language and completely indestructible.
Link had little doubt that he'd be able to open the door, but he disliked the idea of… well revealing himself that way. Well, he could probably keep from revealing himself specifically. But opening that door… well that part would not go unnoticed. He'd been sneaking around here for two days, and he did have a plan, he just… didn't think he'd be able to close the door again. This presented him with two problems, one would be difficult to deal with, the other he could do nothing about.
The simple fact that was the root of both problems was: if he couldn't close the door: other people would be able to see that someone had opened it and, far more worryingly, would be able to walk right on in. The problem he couldn't do anything about was that no matter what he did, this forced some level of exposure on him. Oh he could shut down their hastily set up cameras, he'd already located them, and obviously guards were not a problem, especially since none were posted in the deeper rooms, the furthest of which held the door in question, but there would be no doubt that someone had caused what he was about to do. But they wouldn't know who as long he was careful.
His other problem had to do with… well his natural sense for what he could only assume to be good and evil magic, or maybe power? He really wished he could figure out what that was about. None of his memories had any explanations or even hints for him. But back then the whole world had been swimming in magic… or power… or… whatever it was. His sense had been… lesser either way. It definitely couldn't point him as acutely back then, it had just sometimes came in handy as an early warning mechanic or sense a place as being particularly sacred. At any rate, it was far, far stronger in this incarnation. And while he could sense that this ground was indeed sacred, he could sense some evil behind that door. Since he likely wouldn't be able to close the door, that evil inside would be granted as much access through the door as he would. So this problem was one he'd have to exterminate, and he'd have to be completely thorough.
The last few researchers were finally beginning to trickle away, which meant it wouldn't be long before Link could enact his plan. Aside from a set of night shift guards, everyone went home a short time after dark, and it would be then that he'd be able to open the door. That part was easy. He'd examined the thing and quickly found the method intended. Of course, he could read the text when those who had been struggling for weeks now obviously could not. It had a key hidden in one of the other rooms. The researchers had already found it, but had not connected it to the door, for one very good reason: it looked nothing like a key. It was, instead, a mirror that reflected light in a specific pattern you were meant to line up with a specific point on the door. The magic on the door was set to react to that stimuli and open. Simple. Except that Link worried the kind of light mattered. The rooms outside the Hylian door had been… added later, Link was fairly certain about this. It had not been done entirely by intention, but had been aided by the passage of time. The rock had grown over the Hylian structure of old and, millions of years later, Egyptians had mined the area out to bury a currently unidentified Pharaoh. They must've found the door too and, from where the mirror had been found, had been the ones to actually unearth the mirror but had chosen to put it with their dead ruler and the many riches they had laid with him.
Link was grateful for the Egyptian's reverence in that decision. It had taken most of the time he'd been here to figure out where the archaeologists had stored the thing and steal it back. Fortunately, he'd been able to do that completely off-camera, since it required taking off the his magic cape for a small amount of time. But his one question remained: with access to both sun and moon restricted by layers and layers of rock… would artificially produced light work? He'd stolen a large battery powered lantern, which he figured would produce the amount of light needed… but again, the door might need the sun or moon specifically. Nothing for it but to try. Fortunately, he didn't think he had anything to lose. He would be invisible for most of this, only needing to become tangible, and therefore visible, for his act of sabotage and when he tried to open the door. If that failed… well nobody would be able to find evidence of him, he'd be able, eventually, to find a way through to… whatever was waiting for him on the other side.
Finally, the last group admitted to themselves they weren't getting anymore work done this day, and left to go home or… wherever. Link left the room too, but instead made his way over to a cord that brought power to this section, this would shut off the cameras, but also the lights which would be left on for guards. Fortunately at this exact place, no camera could see him. He pulled free his magic cape, finally revealing himself and it's bright red form to the world. He reached down and tugged the wire free of it's connector a dozen or so feet away, a place that was watched by a camera. Everything went black instantly, perfect. He put his cape back away in his inventory and summoned the lantern he'd borrowed. He turned it on and blinked quickly to readjust his eyes, which had already begun adjusting to the darkness.
Link hurried back down to the Hylian door and set up the light so he could reflect it. He summoned the mirror and positioned it, this was a little trickier than he'd hoped but… there! Something triggered and the design on the door glowed briefly before the whole thing parted down the middle and the two halves pulled away from each other, retracting into the stone on either side. Well, that hadn't been too bad. At least he hadn't needed to find a way to blow a hole in the roof to get actual sun or moon light.
Light spilled out of the doorway he'd just revealed, which put Link on edge, had there been another way in someone else had found? Not likely but… Link turned off the flashlight he'd used to open the door and left it there. He didn't need it anymore and he wasn't a thief. The mirror he kept, it was Hylian, which made it his by default. Besides, he was fairly certain it was magical. He drew his sword and shield, then walked through the door.
The light was produced by lanterns all along the path, certainly magical, as no fuel fed them. The way forward was a dark tunnel that dived deep into the Earth in a spiral shape and, as Link strode forward inside, he noticed the rock type changing. The tan hue of typical Egyptian sandstone becoming slightly darker. After a few minutes of walking he emerged into a much larger room, one that looked about the size of a basketball court, though the floor was unmarked and formed of the same dark stone. Several exits were available to him, though the large, obvious doorway that stood on the far end was clearly locked. This one would need a similar treatment to the door he'd unlocked to get in here, though the design was different so he'd need a different mirror, as well as another light source. Link studied his other options a moment before his internal evil sense warned him of something close. He looked down and saw a huge pale scorpion creeping up on him from the side. The monster was easily the length of his forearm without its tail and it had the bulk to match. He stepped away, trying to get a better angle to deal with it, but it must've realized it had been seen and struck out with its stinger. Link reflectively kicked with the foot it was attacking, and the deadly attack glanced off his boot, taking a hit intended for his less protected leg. The creature recoiled with a sharp squeal, but before it had time to do anything else, Link stabbed down into its body with his sword. It struggled for a moment then died but did not decay. Link frowned. This thing was natural?
He checked the surrounding area to be sure it he was alone now and knelt to inspect the creature. Indeed, aside from its size, there was nothing odd about it. The pale, nearly transparent, coloring was likely due to a species that never saw the sun. It had all the normal features of a scorpion, without any of the twisted or horrific effects Ganondorf tended to add to the… aesthetic of his creations. He was just about ready to dismiss this as simply a very aggressive undiscovered species when his evil sense alerted him again. He spun, his sword and shield were still in hand, and found three more scorpions ganging up on him. He killed them with ease, but something was wrong about all this. If they were natural Link wouldn't have been able to sense them when they got too close. The general sense of evil was still remarkably weak, not like the curse in the forest at all. If he really concentrated he could feel… something here. It was just so weak though…
He turned back to the first scorpion. Still no decay… something about this was very wrong. Another oddity occurred to him: where were these coming from? It didn't take long to discover a series of small holes in the stone, far too small for a human, or Hylian obviously, but large enough for these creatures, assuming they didn't get much bigger. The real question was how they'd been created. If he knew Hylian enchantments, then these walls should be nearly indestructible: bombs where too easily constructed and far to difficult to control when creatures of darkness came calling. Could they have been intended to exist? Maybe as airways or for some similar purpose? That seemed plausible but unlikely. Yes, there did have to be a way for air to come down here, but it couldn't be one the scorpions could use, since they clearly weren't known by the outside world.
He scanned again for any more of the plus-sized arachnids and found nothing, so he paced the room and took note of his options for moving on with getting inside the big room. Four exits lines the sides of the room, aside from the two at either end that stood at his goal and exit respectively. Two of these were locked by similar contraptions as the door he ultimately wanted to find a way through though one of these actually shared a symbol with the larger door. The other two passages were doorless, and stood at opposite ends of the room, so he picked the one on the right and walked through.
After walking through a short stone walkway he emerged into a much smaller room than the one he'd left. It looked about 20 square feet in every direction, a perfect cube omitting the hole he'd just come from and two of the much smaller passages that stood on either side of the room opposite each other. No other exits presented themselves. Sandstone blocks of varying sizes seemed to be simply laying around here, oddly. One even seemed taller than him. He'd need to inspect these in a moment, but a small detail would have to be addressed first. No less then seven of those scorpions wandered the room, and already four of them had noticed him and came scuttling towards him, claws and tail pointed up at him. He took care while dispatching them, if these really were a natural species, then any poison they injected with their oversized tails wouldn't puff away when he killed them.
The area secured, Link examined the room again, looking for the pattern. These stones had purpose, he was sure, they could be used as weights, steps, or just about anything. Though, Link admitted, he would likely have great difficulty moving them. The largest ones, if they really were made of sandstone, as they appeared, probably weighed several tons. He walked around, looking for any designs on the stones, ground, walls, or ceiling to give a clue as to the purpose of the stones. Unfortunately, the only one he could find was partially hidden by the largest of the stone cubes, the one that seemed taller than him. He tested his strength against it just to see if maybe the friction was somehow low enough that he could move it, but had no such luck. Perhaps this room was meant to be addressed second. He checked the other stones for similar hidden designs, but couldn't see any poking out. He pushed a few of the smaller ones with little difficulty, but still found nothing helpful. He then pushed against one standing about half his height. It took effort but… he shoved it around without too much difficulty.
Link stood up straight, that… had to be wrong. If he remembered correctly, sandstone weighed about 150 pounds per cubic foot. Link was right at 6 ft tall, meaning this block should be contain roughly 27 cubic ft of sandstone. That would put it at… Link double checked his math… more than 4 tons all on its own. And he'd just… shoved it around. Link looked at his arms, he'd never been particularly well built and had never displayed particularly superhuman qualities other than his healing. But here he was. Though, now he thought about it, his healing had become for more effective in the weeks he'd been traveling or, rather, since he'd realized who and what he was. Were Hylians supposed to be more powerful than humans? His memories didn't seem to have a clear answer for him. Nothing showed him doing any particularly heavy lifting or otherwise 'supernatural' abilities without particular magic items to make it impossible to gauge what was him or the items. He needed to really test this further. He walked to a stone that, using the previous one as a reference, looked to be 4.5 feet tall and wide. This one took him a moment to calculate on his own but… around 13 tons he thought? He pushed on it with everything he had, it took a moment, but he shoved it just a few inches, but just that was, or should have been, impossible. Still, it had proven extremely difficult, and now his arms felt very tired.
Unable to find anything else of use or in the way of a clue in that room, Link walked back out to the main chamber and crossed it to enter the other room available to him. This room was much smaller than the previous one even, maybe 7-8 ft wide and 15 ft long, the doorway Link stood in set in one of the short sides. No scorpions this time, but several armored skeletons lay collapsed at the far end, where another door stood, barred closed. Link drew his sword and shield, but didn't like the size of the room he had to work with. The door was clearly enchanted to react to evil magic, and was locked closed as a result. Much like the hidden room at the forest shrine a few weeks ago, it wouldn't open till the magic was dispelled. And Ganondorf could manipulate nothing better than the bodies of the dead. Indeed, as Link expected, when he came closer, the bones of those who had died here thousands or even millions of years ago trembled and compiled to form three armored multi-limbed stalfos armed with a sword to each of their… varied number of arms.
Testing what these particular monsters orders were, Link backed out to the far more open space of the main chamber and the stalfos, dutifully, followed him. Good, he'd have much more room to maneuver here. Now that he had a much more favorable position, he allowed himself to grow angry. These remains were Hylian, Link was certain, as all evidence suggested this place had not been opened since before Hyrule had collapsed for good, long before humans had even existed. These were his people, or had been. True, Link had memories of fighting the dead in multiple forms in dozens of lives, but never once had Link considered it 'normal'. Ganondorf was the King of Evil, and this was a perfect example of why. Desecration and destruction were his ways and he both slaughtered and used without regard or respect. But this time it was worse. Link's people were gone, and his ancient adversary still found a way to wield them against him, puppeteering their bodies and forcing him to fight them. Rage boiled in him and he had only one outlet for it.
Link roared and attacked. He was much faster than them, and easily blocked or avoided their attacks even when they tried to surround him. They, however, were completely unable to protect themselves from his furious strikes, and he quickly started hacking them apart. Taking off limbs and even cutting their armor free at times. The first one collapsed into a heap in less than a minute, and the magic completely vanished into a purple smoke that dispersed near instantly. With the magic holding them together gone, the old bones remembered their age and fell into dust in mere seconds, during which time Link ended another of the abominations. With only one remaining, Link had an even easier time ending Ganondorf's cruelty. He stood there, breathing heavily while his rage cooled down. Adrenaline vanishing, his arms felt even more tired now. He was also starting to become more aware of how much time was passing. He only had one night to clear this entire place of potential dangers and find whatever he was looking for in here. If the human researchers came down here before he was done… they could very well be in grave danger. He also preferably wanted to get some sleep at some point.
The monsters dead, the bars over the door ahead slid away to who knew where, leaving the door accessible to anyone. Link's eyes widened when he saw what was on the other side. A single gold chest stood in the center. This was exciting, yes, but right beside it was a fortune in gold ingots, each maybe the length and width of his thumb. They were marked with Hylian script as well, which confused Link, though it only showed the weight of the ingots. At no point in his memory did Hyrule use gold for currency. It was considered valuable only for its abilities conducting electricity as well as decoration. Using gold for a baseline in monetary value was, as far as Link could tell, a human invention. Gold was, of course, extremely heavy but his inventory would completely negate that problem. Whatever the reason behind gold being placed here, Link wouldn't complain. Getting food or places to sleep had proven difficult at times. While he'd been here he'd gone nearly without food so far, though earlier today he'd managed to snag a few protein bars. He scooped the gold into his inventory as quickly as he could. He'd be able to trade these at pawn shops nearly anywhere in the world. He did leave a few ingots, maybe a couple thousands worth, for the research group above. They'd probably be catalogued and eventually moved into some museum, and Link liked the idea of Hylian relics that weren't directly necessary to him, like the ones he'd found in that forest shrine, being preserved that way. It still left him with a substantial amount of gold to work with for his travels.
The gold secured in his inventory, Link turned to what he suspected would be the real prize here: the chest. It was not locked, thankfully, as the magic barring the door before was probably considered enough protection. Inside he found a pair of gold gloves with a single, but very large, red gem set in each, likely as a focus for the enchantments. He recognized these as the Golden Gauntlets, a fairly obvious name for an incredible item. He'd marveled at his own strength just moments ago but with these he remembered lifting and throwing far, far larger and heavier objects than the blocks in the other room.
He pulled them on his arms and carefully pulled the straps tight and immediately felt the earlier strain on his arms vanish entirely. These Gauntlets were enchanted to brace his arms, they wouldn't increase striking power in any way like making his sword swings harder or faster, but wearing them he could lift huge stone blocks and throw them or withstand extremely heavy blows on his shield without feeling the slightest strain. He hurried back to the previous room, which had somehow gone and filled with scorpions again. Link sighed and killed them all off, leaving their corpses beside those of their fellows. Then he pressed both hands against the largest block and shoved it aside like a desk chair, revealing the pattern underneath. It was actually a series of pictures which showed, in succession: a person firing an arrow at a spot right above the doorway to the room and it rebounding, then throwing a rock for the same effect, and then standing on a pile of blocks and reaching into the same spot, arm apparently sinking through the stone. The meaning seemed clear enough, and Link used his newly enhanced strength to move shove the stone blocks over to the doorway, blocking it off, then began picking them up and piling them onto each other to give him the height the diagram seemed to indicate. It actually took a long time, he now possessed the strength to move them around and even lift them true, but making the pile of them was very hard for different reasons. Sandstone was heavy and tough, true, but Link doubted the blocks would remain undamaged if he went about throwing them on top of each other and their bulk presented more problems. He could hardly maneuver them with one hand when nearly all of them where larger than him on all but height. This meant he had to pick them up and push them over the top of the bottom one, already as tall as he was, then climb up and repeat the process until he got it to the top, then climb down and repeat the process but with an extra step. This became harder with every layer he added, as the surface of the blocks that already had a layer on top of them was already mostly covered. He'd forgotten to account for that the first time he tried this, and partly through the building, he realized he'd actually made it impossible to continue, since the blocks didn't actually have the surface area they needed to not fall while he climbed up beside it, and had to restart, skipping sizes in blocks to solve the problem. When he finally had a structure he was satisfied with, he climbed up all the way and felt around the wall, looking for the area the diagram showed. That, at least, didn't take long, and his hands went straight through what he assumed was an illusion of some kind. Feeling around inside he found the small space was only about half a foot across in any direction, except for a pressure switch that, when pressed nearly blinded him with light. He barely avoided falling, he really didn't want to test the possibility of being physically tougher than humans at the moment, and blinked to clear his eyes. The light was gone, the switch had pushed back when he let go, clearing the light.
Link looked back down to check and found a block exactly the right size to fit in this hole, and it only took a moment to get it up his small tower and slide it into place, and with the block in the way, the light didn't escape and blind him again. He climbed back down and tried to shove his entire pile at once. He pushed against it lightly at first, which gained him nothing. He tired harder, straining against it till he could actually feel his arms aching again, and it finally began to move. It took another half a minute or so, but he pushed it out of the way of the door again and he stopped and walked back through. His arms stopped hurting as soon as he stopped. These things were incredible: he'd just pushed at least 50 tons of sandstone several feet with no repercussions, though he suspected if he took off the gauntlets his arms would scream at him for the abuse.
When he finally came out of the room into the main chamber again he saw what exactly it was that he'd triggered. A beam of light streamed from the other side of the wall, which he'd just been climbing over, reflected off a mirror that had also been exposed for the occasion and was set in the ground in the middle of the chamber, and had hit the locked doorway on the other side of the room. The symbol that didn't match the larger room across from the main entrance. Naturally, the magic had reacted and the door was now open. Link would have crossed immediately to explore this new room, but he also saw more scorpions. These things were getting tiresome. He left their corpses stabbed or sliced part behind him when he finally got to explore this third room.
The room was… nearly identical to the previous one. The same set of blocks set randomly around, the same near-perfect square shape, and the same confusing scorpions littering the area, ready to attack him the moment he walked in. Link sighed as he drew his sword, was it really going to be this boring? The answer, it very quickly turned out, was no. A few dead scorpions decorated the floor now and when he'd moved the largest block again, he'd found the diagram was different. He inspected it, and it showed a… pattern: all the blocks arranged in a specific way from a top-down perspective, a few set on top of one another but mostly just scattered around the room. The only problem now was direction. Since the room was perfectly square, there were a total of four different ways to follow these directions. Link sighed, might as well start with the direction the diagram followed as "forward". It took several minutes, but he did get all of them into the correct places. His arms hadn't begun hurting at any point either, which was nice. It probably meant that only the extreme weight of the stack he'd constructed before had pushed the incredible but still limited gauntlets enough to actually strain him. Unfortunately, once he'd completed the diagram, nothing happened at all. Ok, maybe there was another clue as to the direction he was supposed to work from? He scanned the room again, looking for something he'd missed. He found a hint in the dust. Dust coated the floor only broken by where he'd walked around carrying the heavy blocks or shoved aside where the larger ones were too big to get a grip on to carry. Exactly as one would expect. Except there were patches where the dust was actually uneven, not anywhere he'd been previously walking though. He walked over to one and stepped in, his foot fell further than the given floor would've suggested, but he'd expected something like this, so he wasn't put off balance. His foot settled only a few inches below the illusion and Link quickly ascertained the size of the indentation, then picked out the block that would fit. When he had placed the heavy sandstone inside, it sank even further than his foot had, and something clicked. Link smiled. Using this first one as a baseline, he quickly pushed or carried each stone to its place, each one clicking as he put it, or the two of them when necessary, inside. Each switch was set to trigger with a specific amount of weight, apparently.
Finally, when the final pressure plate had been satisfied, a chest appeared from nowhere. Link hurried over to it and opened it. Inside was a type of item he'd held many times. Though each one had had specific unique characteristics, they had all functioned roughly the same way. A Mirror Shield. He hefted it out of the chest and was surprised, the thing was… well he couldn't really tell how heavy it was with the gauntlets on… and he doubted even without given how strong he'd somehow grown. Nevertheless, he could somehow tell it was far heavier than it he'd have thought just by looking at it.
Set in a diamond shape, it bore no design, unlike some he'd owned in past lives, and the face of it was instead a silvery-pale, moonlight color. The rest of the design seemed to be solid silver, possibly the source of its odd weight, thankfully that wouldn't be a problem as this shield would be enchanted to be nearly impossible to break, though it wouldn't be completely indestructible like a true Hylian shield. It would make up for that with its capability to reflect light or magic based attacks. He unhooked the shield on his back and stowed it in the inventory. No use in leaving it behind, and he was incredibly grateful to the old man for having it crafted for him as he doubted he could have killed the hydra without it, but Link knew to accept an upgrade when it came along. Especially since he already knew one need he had for it. Walking back out to the main chamber again, Link saw that a second beam of light poured from above, striking the same mirror on the ground and hitting nothing of worth to him. That didn't matter, it was the two designs together that mattered. He should have noticed sooner, but the first beam's design, that had matched the door he'd just walked out of, had been a partial of the total emblem that marked both the main door he wanted to open and that fourth door directly across from him now. That still struck him as odd, he now had all the keys to enter the room that was the main goal, what was the point of the fourth side chamber?
Link debated skipping it, time was starting to become a worry for him, as he'd spent a not inconsiderable amount of it pushing or carrying around blocks in the past two rooms. But, worried he might be leaving behind something of necessity, he positioned himself and his new Mirror Shield to reflect the two lights together into the fourth door.
A chime sounded in his mind and somehow he automatically interrupted the musical notes as a language: "The Sword that Leaks the Shadow is sealed beyond. Beware, for only the Sword that Seals the Darkness may counter it."
Well… that was an ominous message. Neither title seemed to trigger any of Link's memories, were these names he had never known before? He didn't open the door, it hadn't opened just yet and he could see some kind of bar being filled above the door. If he'd held the light there the door would've opened, he was sure. But he had no magical sword of any kind at the moment, let alone one that matched the description the music had indicated. He turned his shield and the reflection with it to the large door directly ahead of him. Maybe, if he ever found the "Sword that Seals the Darkness", he'd come back here and see what that room was about but for now he did need to stay on his goal. Somebody would realize that he'd pulled the plug on the power and investigate for sure. This door reacted immediately to the beam of light and opened much the same as the first doorway to entire this place had, by splitting down the middle and retracting into the stone walls on either side of it. When it had completed, Link saw the beam coming from the right switch off and heard a thud a moment later. He assumed the setup had been designed to push the block free from its place in the first puzzle room when completed. The doors ahead slowly started to close. Link jumped in surprise and dashed forwards, Mirror Shield still on his arm, and cleared the closing doors with time to spare.
"How did he slip past you!?" Hill asked, failing to keep the exasperation out of her voice. She was looking at a infrared video of the inside of the tomb. Her assignment here was only meant to be temporary, while SHIELD got their agents in at various levels to prevent the masses from learning the extent of the immovable door's indestructibility. Only that door had just been opened. The secret camera SHIELD had placed ran on battery rather than the main power source, which was why it had captured a character dressed in rugged travel clothes like some Indiana Jones wannabe walking right up to the thing, setting up a powerful electric lantern, pull out a mirror and reflect a beam of light at the door, which promptly opened. Decades of research, experiments, and outright explosives and SHIELD had gotten nowhere with the prestructures. Prestructure was an unofficial term the agents of SHIELD used among themselves for these pre-humanity relics, but she supposed it did the job. Anyway, while SHIELD had by no means given up, they really had seemed to literally hit a wall with the prestructures. And this… person had just walked up and opened the thing with a flashlight and a mirror. Fury was not going to like this.
"W-we don't know sir! Ma'am! We're reviewing footage from other rooms trying to figure that out. He certainly never passed the guards though. We've already checked all the camera's of the entrance and… he never passed."
"That doesn't make sense, Agent."
"Believe me, I know sirrrma'am." The agent said.
Agent Hill sighed, "Just pick one, agent. I don't care…"
"Ma'am! Over here! I got it!" Another agent said a few feet from her.
Hill walked over and he hit play on the clip he'd found, the label at the top right corner of the video told her it was from a corridor leading away from the prestructure room to the room with the actual Pharoh's tomb. The video was from before the power had gone out. It showed the man, no… teenager, he didn't look any older than 16 or 17, appear from nowhere, swinging a red cape from off his shoulders as he did so. Then he tucked said cape… into a pack somewhere behind him? It looked to big for that, especially since he didn't fold it or anything. But he made it vanish somehow. He then reached down and tugged on a power cable and knocked out the power. The camera automatically switched to infrared, as it was designed to do, and showed the boy pulling out the lantern he'd later use to open the prestructure door seemingly from nowhere and turn it on, then walk down towards the door.
"This camera was put at the blind spot the researchers…" the agent who'd found the footage started to say, but Hill cut him off.
"Get field agents down there now!"
"Ma'am? I thought you said you didn't want to alert the public guards something happened in case they realized we had extra camera's in there."
"I thought we could get him on his way out, but he can turn invisible, we need to catch him while he's still down there!"
"Yes ma'am!" The agent said, finally realizing what she had. This person, who or whatever he was, had abilities or technology SHIELD didn't know. As if they didn't already have enough to worry about with him. Agent Maria Hill had some decisions to make, a few of which might get her in trouble.
Link rushed into a lit room somewhere between thirty and forty square feet in all dimensions. It was all sandstone in this room, the rock much tanner than the walls and ceiling of the rest of this temple? Dungeon? Whatever. Link also noticed several broken automatons resembling beemos lining the walls.
The moment the door closed behind Link, he heard a melody, once again interpreted by his mind: "One who learns of the strength of spirit, it's ability to shape and alter, face now the captured monstrosity of your past. Force your will onto reality and emerge victorious."
When the melodic message finished, a enormous door on the other side of the room rose into the roof. The creature that came forth made Link's hackles rise: an armored arachnid-like monster with enormous claws large enough to crush a man in seconds, a long segmented tail topped with a stinger built to impale not poison, and dozens of eyes placed at its head, far more than the typical eight of a natural species. It was, put simply, an evil giant scorpion. Mirror Shield already on his arm, Link drew his sword, noticing that the mechanical beemos on the sides had all started to fire lasers, so they weren't completely nonfunctional, but they seemed unable to alter their direction at all and were pointing at angles so that the lasers struck the magically protected ground. The new Boss ahead of him hissed and charged, a very different sound from the one the hydra had made, it sounded like it was forcing the sound out through a wall of spittle.
Link's hands tightened on his sword and shield. He forced down his fear had he'd done before, and breathed evenly. This creature was incredibly dangerous, but this time Link had more options than against the hydra. His strength had grown incredibly, and he'd increased even that with the Golden Gauntlets. His shield wouldn't snap against its claws or be pierced by its tail. He could see the path to victory already, it was as the message had said: he'd force his will onto reality. It was the scorpion who was doomed.
As the creature reached him and prepared to strike with one of its claws, Link rushed forwards, right past its claws, and stabbed one of the eyes with his sword. He immediately backed out, the final piece of the puzzle fitting into place, and let the monster writhe for a moment. It was far too dangerous to attack when it moved erratically like that. The eye that had been skewered by Link's sword dribbled a purple smoke for a moment then disintegrated. This creature, at least, was one of Ganondorf's. It calmed down and attacked Link again, but he vaulted over the claw that attacked him from the left side and dashed towards the nearest of the lasers. It took a moment for the beast to turn around towards him again, those eight legs were awful for spinning in place, and they'd been fighting near the doorway Link had used to enter the room, it didn't have room to turn in an arc, which would surely have been faster for it. However when it did turn around fully, it charged again with a dangerous speed. Link was fast, faster than he thought he should've been, but that was starting to surprise him less than it had and the beast, while faster, had a very late start. Link reached the death ray and put it between the scorpion and himself, then redirected the automaton's gaze into the arachnid's eyes with the Mirror Shield. Condensed light, set originally for whatever purpose but broken past being anything more than a moderately dangerous hazard, was given purpose again, reflected at Link's instruction to destroy an enemy. The message hadn't told Link some metaphysical lesson about mind over matter, but a literal one. Take what you have, your tools and the environment, and shape them into what you need them to be. A shield made into a weapon, a hazard into a strength. Link managed to burn away around a dozen of the monster's eyes before it reached him and took a swipe. He dodged backwards easily and ran for a laser on the other side of the room. Once again he got a head start on the scorpion as it was forced to turn around to face him, though this time Link had further to run and the creature less of a distance to turn. When Link reached his weapon of light and turned, he noted with annoyance that the beemos he'd been using before was destroyed. Whether that had been an accident on his foe's part or intentional, he wasn't sure but it did pose a problem. Five mechanical beemos remained. Attacking his enemy head on with his sword was far more dangerous than this method so he'd need to find a way to make these things destroy more eyes if this monster was going to keep breaking them.
He kept going, but on the fourth beemos Link waited too long, trying to burn away as many of the monster's eyes as he could, and got grabbed by one of the creature's claws, which rose into the air some once it had him. The shell of the beast took the laser now off to the side and Link was no longer doing any damage to the monster, then the scorpion tried to crush him then and there. Unfortunately for it, Link was stronger. He pushed out with his shield and sword hand and forced its claw apart. The wicked tail came up to stab him through, but he released the claws and fell through to the ground before the claw could clamp down on him again. On the fifth beemos, the final of its many eyes burned away, and the beast screamed its hiss out in indignation. Then the shell that had been set around its face and eyes broke away, revealing one giant bulging eye and a disgusting mouth that was indeed dripping spittle onto the ground.
It advanced on Link and reared it's massive stinger to attack him. Link decided he was done with redirecting lasers, and as the spear-like point came down to kill him, Link reached up and caught it with his shield hand. Then he stabbed the monster in it's single bulbous eye. Purple smoke broke out and the creature thrashed wildly, Link let go of the stinger and his own sword, leaving it stuck painfully in the scorpion's body, and backed away while it died and disintegrated into nothing, though for some reason it's shell did not disappear, instead falling to the ground virtually unharmed but empty.
Another melody played, and his mind translated it as before: "You have proven your strength of spirit. Take now a piece of your past you had lost."
As he listened a ray of soft white light appeared right beside the dead scorpion shell. Link walked over and retrieved his sword, then put his hand in the light. Something small gently landed on his outstretched hand and, when he closed his fist over it, the light vanished. He inspected his gift, an earring with a small dangling red gem. Link's ears weren't pierced, so he gritted it teeth and stabbed the piece in his left earlobe. It didn't hurt as bad as he'd feared, and not for long either. In mere seconds his extreme healing took over. The blood stopped, and the wound sealed itself over the earring. If he ever wanted to remove the thing it would probably prove far more painful, but he doubted he'd really ever find the need. He had a guess as to what precisely this did, but he'd have to test to be sure. He had another problem, now that everything was silent, except for a throbbing in his ear (that might take a bit longer to go away), he could hear voices on the other side of the door. And right as he turned to consider his options, he watched it start to open up. Well he could leave the same way he came in at least. Good thing nobody knew what he looked like, whatever secret services got wind of this would be keeping an eye out for him and he didn't much like the idea of being invisible anytime he was in a public area. Besides, Link was very hungry by this point. He slung his Magic Cape on and walked right through the confused guards to go find a pawn shop to sell some gold.